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Cocktail lovers will have to imbibe their drinks in old-fashioned liquid form after a U.S. federal agency reversed its approval of a powdered alcohol product called “Palcohol.”

Lipsmark, the company behind Palcohol, claims the product packs the punch of hard liquor in a fine powder form. Adding an ounce of the powder to any food or liquid instantly infuses it with alcohol, according to the product’s website.

Palcohol gained international media attention after government documents emerged showing the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau approved package labels for the product on April 8.

But on April 21, Tom Hogue, a spokesperson for the U.S. agency, told the Associated Press in an email that the approvals were issued in error.

“Isn’t it obvious that this would be hugely controversial?” said Robert C. Lehrman, an attorney at Lehrman Beverage Law who has spent 25 years specializing in the regulation of alcoholic beverages.

“This doesn’t mean that Palcohol isn’t approved,” the company said in a statement on its website. “We will resubmit the labels.”

According to the product’s website, Palcohol was created by Mark Phillips, an Arizona man who wanted a portable form of alcohol for camping trips. Phillips could not be reached for comment.

Lehrman said Phillips had told him the company had been working for years to gain federal approval for the product.

“He had to qualify as a distillery, so he has a distillery licence, which is a big project. Then he had to get a formal approval on every formulation. He’s got about five different products there — a vodka-type product, a rum-type product,” Lehrman said.

The alcohol content of the powder is derived from rum and vodka. Flavouring and sweeteners are added for four different cocktails: lemon drop, cosmopolitan, mojito and margarita.

An early version of the product’s website pitched the portability of the powder, saying it could be smuggled into concerts, sporting events, movie theatres, and even on to cruise ships to avoid buying booze.

Not only that, the website stated, but Palcohol can be snorted.

“You’ll get drunk almost instantly because the alcohol will be absorbed so quickly in your nose,” the site said, before stressing this is a bad idea and Palcohol should only be used responsibly.

Since news of the product broke, the company removed that text from their website, explaining it was a “humorous and edgy” first draft they didn’t intend the public to see. (View the web page cache here.)

The updated site says the company has increased the volume of the Palcohol powder to discourage snorting, which “is not a responsible or smart way to use the product.”

In addition to regaining label approval, Lehrman said that the company will have to clear a number of other hurdles before it can be sold to the public, including manufacturing mass quantities of the product, securing approval from state regulators and striking deals with wholesale distributors.

“I would expect that they would be quite cautious about this,” Lehrman said. “If you’re making a lot of money selling Johnny Walker Blue or Heineken, do you really want to rock the boat with this?”

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